(20091031)
she plays piano on days she misses him most. some songs are happy and upbeat, the first time they met and kisses in the sunshine. others are angry, too fast, like beginner's tricks, all the times she screamed at him and he left with keys in the lock and broken dishes on the floor.
she plays the piano every day.
the boy that got a new start, austin, doesn't question it when she cries while playing the piano, sad songs that tell about lovers and farewells that he doesn't really understand. he just sits on the piano bench, small hand tugging the helm of her flowing skirt, and sometimes, on lucky days, she sings.
"austin, austin," she would occasionally say while they walked in the park on clear blue afternoons, his hand wrapped around tips of her fingers to keep her from floating away. "austin, look at the sky. do you know? one day, we'll all be a part of it. we'll be perfect and endless and we'll all still have gray days that make us cry, but we'll last forever. pieces of the sky won't break off and fall apart and we'll be forever."
"austin, look at the sky. isn't it beautiful?"
august was his name, the other half to her whole. he had dark dark hair and crooked smiles and he left in may, while the tulips in their backyard were starting to die. he didn't leave a note nor a goodbye, found in the middle of a street in the morning, stolen away by a hit and run driver.
austin was a nameless boy on the street, face and hands dirtied with tear tracks running down his face. she was walking home from the store in ballerina flats and a white dress, stopping when she saw the boy in the shadows with no shoes on his feet. their eyes caught and she crouched in front of him. the first words-- "you know, you look just like him" --before she pressed her lips to his tear streaked cheek.
"my name is aislinn and you must be a gift of mine," she said as she smeared his tears away with soft hands and a sad smile. "do you have a name?" a shake of the head and a simple statement of, "you can be august's austin." she pulled out chocolate covered crackers from her bag and whispered single phrases as they walked back to her house by the lake.
"just think of it as, you're saving me."
austin gets used to being called austin. he gets used to hearing stanzas of poems every night, taken from an old notebook that she keeps under her pillow and only pulls out to read for him. he doesn't ask for her to read the books on his shelf about spaceships and heroes, saves those for when she stumbles over the words in the notebook while trying not to cry.
austin gets used to being loved and having friends from the neighborhood, running around and skipping rocks by the lake. he gets used to making sure aislinn stays rooted to the ground with small gestures and smiles that sometimes cause her eyes to glaze over, rooted but in a different memory.
"when you grow up austin, when you grow up, don't ever dye your dark dark hair. when you grow up austin, promise me that you won't break anyone's heart just because they love you so much that you can. austin, austin, when you grow up and i'm in the sky, don't cry for me, okay?"
"when you grow up austin, i want you to know, you'll break someone's heart anyways, but tell them. tell of the sky and how you'll be forever so that they don't miss you as much. and austin, when you grow up, i want you to follow your dreams, no matter how hard it is, because nothing else matters."
"so austin, when you grow up, just think of it as, you're saving me as i'm in the sky."
august's austin, who was really aislinn's austin grows up. he saves her again but she doesn't need it, the day she fades to blue and turns into sky because she's forever now. he holds a funeral service for her, after finding her lying in bed in a perfect white dress and cold ridden skin, looking as much as an angel as she did the first time she pressed lips to his dirtied cheeks and told him that he was austin.
he cries for her, cries for her and her grand white piano that's going out of tune. he cries for all the flowing white dresses and full skirts left in her closet with ballet flats in the corner and the stage that she never returned to. he's not fully grown up, he figures, so it's okay when he cries for her. aislinn who was like a dream.
the boy, austin, he does grow up though. he moves out of the house by the lake because he has dreams to follow and people to tell, but doesn't let anyone buy it. he writes the words she's said to him in a notebook that he hides behind all his other books about spaceships and heroes.
he follows his dreams until he's a well known writer and austin, austin, he writes people stories that make them fall, but he keeps the story of the sky, one he heard from a second chance, to himself and waits for forever. (he waits for forever by himself, but then he meets someone, a person that gives him a chance to break her heart with her camera hanging from her neck and roots of her hair catching red);